Barty's Holiday
by Lara1221
Summary: A young Barty Crouch Jr is having a weekend away with his parents, and none of his family feel the same. A little cute, a little angsty.
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

 **A/N:** Haven't been here in a while! I hope you all enjoy this :) I signed back onto QL as a beater for the Catapults, and this round we had to write about a death eater (I chose barty crouch jr.) on holiday (my beater one prompt). My optional prompts were: 4. (dialogue) "I really do like the pants.", 6. (word) inappropriate.

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Barty's Holiday

"We're supposed to be on _holiday_ ," Mother insisted to Father for what must have been the hundredth time today. He didn't know if it was one hundred, exactly, but it was a lot.

Bartemius looked up at his mother's face, then to his father's, then back down to the cobblestone street. His palms were sweaty, and he wriggled his little fingers in each of his parents' hands, but they squeezed tighter. He was starting to feel uncomfortable; he was wearing a coat on a rainy day and his hands were sticky. How was he ever going to be a big boy if he couldn't dress himself and walk himself down the street?

"Mother." He tugged on her hand impatiently. "I thought we were going to see the Widditch match."

" _Quidditch_ , Barty. Not Widditch," said Father shortly, but Barty was still looking at his mother, who was ignoring him. He tugged again.

"We are going to the match, love, but it's not until tonight. We have the whole day to do whatever you'd like."

"Merlin, it would be lovely for you to get him out of the hotel for a little bit. I haven't gotten any work done since we got here."

Mother stopped dead in her tracks and turned to stare at Father. Not noticing his wife's stopping until his son's hand was holding him back, he turned to look at the stern look on her face. "What?"

"We got here _yesterday morning_."

"Yes, and? Jen, I have a formal report due on Monday."

"Then it can wait until the weekend. In the meantime, Barty, what would you like to do?" Barty recognized his name and that he was back in the conversation, and he looked first at his father, with a barely there frown, and then to his mother, with a barely there smile.

Just then, he caught a sight down the avenue. A large swirled strawberry ice cream, drizzled in chocolate. He licked his lips.

"I'm hungry."

"Hungry? We just ate an hour ago."

Barty was finally able to wriggle free of his father's grip when he was distracted and pointed to the sign; he read a name, and 'sweet', but the last word was too big for him to read yet.

"Sal's Sweet Sensations? That does sound like a nice treat, Barty. What if we make a deal? We'll go to the ice cream parlor if you go shopping with me to get some nice clothes for Easter. I really do like the pants we saw in the window earlier."

All Barty heard was _yes_. He nodded enthusiastically, and a toothy grin broke onto his face.

They were a short walk from the shop, but Barty found himself distracted by children who may have been his age. There was a tiny park on the next corner they passed, swings and slides. They all seemed to be friends. One of the boys was being pushed on the swings by his father. Father had pushed Barty on the swings once, but he got an owl and had to get back to work.

"Can I play, Mother?"

"After the sweets, and after we pick you out a new outfit."

He watched the playing children until they were at the sweet shop. They seemed quite friendly; maybe he could have Mother write their mothers' owls, and they could play again. Barty only got to play when Father had work meetings with people who brought their children, and that took half the fun out of it. He wanted to play with Father, too.

The inside of the shop was better than Barty could have imagined. There were too many ice cream flavors for him to count, plus loads of toppings. He recognized some Muggle sweets.

"Father," he said, staring at the glass, already picturing a ten scoop cone, "can I have the knuts?"

"Not until you've told me what you want, and not more than two scoops."

"The toffee and chocolate one and the creamy strawberry one in a waffle cone with this and this on it," he said proudly to the sales lady, pointing to candy floss and every flavor beans in turn. The sales lady handed him the large cone and his Father handed over the knuts before they both went back to sit with his mother, who was sipping on a large fruity drink. As soon as they sat down, Father announced he was going to look at a library next door.

Mother looked up. She looked upset. "You don't want anything to eat?"

"I'll be right back, really." Father smiled really hard, but Mother didn't do anything. "I saw a book in the window by Perkins; you know how much that man knows our economy."

Just then, Barty noticed something – a child from the park was walking into the library Father was talking about. "I want to go."

For once, he immediately had his father's attention. "What?"

"I like to read," he tried. His mother looked confused, but turned to Father.

"Nothing inappropriate or political for Barty; if he comes back here talking about Ludo, I'm going to kill you."

But Father was still confused. "Why do you want to come, really?"

Barty thought hard, and decided to smile. "I like to _learn_."

Father humpfed, but reluctantly told Barty to be very quiet, not touch anything, and hold his hand as he lead him out of the shop. When they reached the library, Barty immediately tugged to go and try to find the other little boy, but Father held tight.

"If you want to learn, you're going to learn. Here, take this," Father handed him a very heavy leather bound book and told him to sit, putting it in his lap so that he could hold his ice cream too. "Read this and tell me what you think."

Barty looked at the words on the page, squinting because he thought they were unclear but realizing he simply didn't know how to read them.

But suddenly, the little boy from before was down the aisle and he came to sit next to Barty. Barty looked up, giving the boy a surprised look, but the boy said "I want to hear the story."

Barty saw Father give a smile to the other boy's mother, but when he looked back at Barty his face was blank. Barty looked back down at the page and tried really hard. "Magic is an _increedle_ gift, and we need to _canseldit_ our money so we can…" Barty trailed off. He had glanced down the page and he didn't understand anything.

"Wow!" said the other boy. Barty smiled.

After, Father allowed Barty to read with the other boy much easier books they found in a children's corner of the library, but then they went back to meet mother in the shop.

"How did he do?" Mother asked with a grin.

Father looked back down at Barty, who was smiling, and then at Mother. "I didn't see anything special."

Barty looked down at the cobblestones as they exited and kicked at the rocks, wishing for a better day, at least, let alone holiday.


End file.
